was intrigued by the title so I clicked in not expecting to watch the whole thing but was captivated by the way you spoke about the film. Thank you for that.
Thank you, Mike. I haven't seen "The Zone of Interest" or "Son of Saul" yet, but I really enjoyed your video. Such an interesting and thoughtful review, analysis, and comparison of the two films!
Your correction of the Arendt commonplace is necessary (Did she really fail to see the demon behind Eichmann's mask? Does Glazer ?). The contrast with Son of Saul is brilliant. It makes sense of your appraisal, without rejecting the importance of Zone. I wonder if you think that Kubrick's project, based on the Wartime Lies novel, could have worked. Many heartfelt thanks.
Thanks, Steve! I'm sure Kubrick would have made it work, but I'm kind of glad it didn't happen. For a start, we might not have got Eyes Wide Shut! More seriously, it would have just added to the movies on the same theme that were around at the time, that I don't feel were adding anything to the conversation and felt unnecessary at best, unpleasant at worst. (I think everyone's carefully forgotten Life Is Beautiful...)
Thanks, Michael, what you say makes a lot of sense and Kubrick didn't make the film, after all. But "Wartime Lies" does add much to the conversation about survival, I think. Have you discussed "Eyes Wide Shut" or other films by Kubrick? I very much hope you have because your work is extraordinary.
@@stivschwartz thanks, Steve! I’ve done a top ten Kubrick films, but it was a very early vid and I’d quite like to rework it a bit. But it’s there if you want to check it out. I love Eyes Wide Shut and have discussed it in other vids . I think it gets better with age.
@@michaelbartlettfilm Thanks, Mike, that's great news. I'll watch them.. "Eyes Wide Shut" does have long legs, as you say It really makes me want to think about it critically And speaking of mystery, I'm haunted by the German series Kafka on Chiaflicks
I've not seen 'The Zone of Interest', but many seem to have forgotten that some of this same thematic territory was covered in the 1982 drama 'Sophie's Choice', where pivotal scenes are set in Auschwitz, including the commandant's residence, the occurrences there highlighting the disjunction between the quotidian mundanity of the captors' lives and the lethal horrors within the camp over which they preside. 'Sophie's Choice' isn't to my mind a great film, but it's a serious and probing work that forces the viewer to confront the evil that human beings have recurrently enacted. (I should note that 'Sophie's Choice' was also adapted from a novel, which I've not read.) Like you, I am an admirer of 'Son of Saul', one of the indisputable greatest films of the twenty-first century so far. As you indicate, much of my respect for this masterpiece resides in its moral complexity, and its insistence on the viewer's engagement with the material (and incidentally, my own feeling for the story was that the boy was not Saul's child, but this deliberate ambiguity is part of the film's power). Lastly, your comments on 'Son of Saul' bring to mind thoughts on Pier Paolo Pasolini's enduringly provocative final film 'Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma', from 1975, wherein the director's Sadean setting becomes an analogue to the death camps of German-occupied Europe, with the narrative illustrating how terror can generate complicity and acquiescence to limitless horror and depravity. I respect how this film implicates the viewer in the proceedings, denying both characters and audience of any claims of innocence and inertia, and demands that all confront the darkness harbored in every human heart.
I like the zone of interest cause it is subtle like the mother in law just wanting to leave cause of the overwhelming dread of being next to the camp. The river scene. I saw Sophies recently after zone and that final scene probably happened hundreds of time in a day at because they used to separate the children as soon as they get off of the train.
Your thoughts on this were worth the wait. Great video. I’m now reassessing my viewing experience of both ZoI and SoS. 👍 Thanks as always for your intelligent and honest takes.
This has to be the best analysis I have seen of The Zone Of Interest, even though I am not as critical of it as you, that I feel because we never see the horror of the holocaust makes the film better. But your perspective makes me think different about it, and that is why I always enjoy your videoes. I think what makes your unpoupular opinions great, is that you are always very clear about why you feel the way you feel, and you have some interesting points of view. I hope you will continue to do that. As a I have wrote before- your channel is very underrated. I wish I had seen Son of Saul- I have it on DVD, but havent got into it yet.
I have to say I disagree with your assessments of both films. For a start, much of your use of language is ill-judged here. What does it really mean to say a film 'puts you in a glib position' or 'compromises the viewer'? This just seems like empty jargon to me. Also, I'm not sure whether you mean the word 'bourgeois' in either the Marxist or the traditional sense, but in neither case does it correctly describe the family in the Glazer film. I think you're rather exaggerating the moral ambiguity of 'Son of Saul'. The sonderkommando were victims just as much as any of the other inmates - all of them were purged after a few months before being replaced by a fresh group of inmates. And in fact their victimhood was intensified, because they had to take perform unspeakable duties as a prelude to their deaths. They are by no means comparable to the kapos or the authorities in many of the German-run ghettos, who were really *were* morally implicated in the Holocaust, even though they were to a greater or lesser extent victims of the Nazis themselves. You say repeatedly that 'The Zone of Interest' depicts its subjects 'unrealistically' or 'unbelievably' without really offering any supporting argument. I don't understand why you think this. It is in fact remarkably realistic and true to history - no work of historical fiction is ever entirely accurate, but it's certainly one of the most truthful historical films I've ever seen. It is based on extensive research into the lives of the Höss family, the bureaucracy of the SS, Höss's memoir, the testimony of witnesses, and so on. By comparison, although 'Son of Saul' has various real events taking place in the background (a boy who supposedly survived being gassed for a brief time, the inmate revolt), the central figure and his story are entirely made up, and to my mind at least, seem a bit contrived.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I think my problem with the realism of Zone of Interest lies in the depiction of Hoss and his wife, and the interaction between them. They hardly ever discuss his work, the daily ins and outs of it, the thinking behind it. Her relationship to the situation is portrayed as "out of sight, out of mind" to an extent that I find unbelievable. There is one brief scene at the beginning where Hoss discusses the architecture of the death chambers with some designers. But that's it. I absolutely agree that the materialistic reality of the time, the detail, is superbly evoked. And I forgot to mention in my video the incredible sound design, one of the chief features of the film. But if the conceit is to work, the characters on screen must be believable, not just as a bourgeois family of that era, but as people involved - on their doorstep - in such an undertaking. In Glazer's film, they are portrayed as a common-or-garden clerk and his wife. There is barely any discussion of his "work" bar his transfer to another camp. And I find that "glib" - it's too facile a depiction of the people involved, and puts the audience in a position of judgment which is too straightforward and not challenging enough. How close are we ourselves to the Hosses, for example? I suppose, ultimately, one's perception of the realism of a film is subjective. I found ZOI fascinating, but it didn't quite work for me.
Excellent video and well done on finally putting it out. I was very interested to hear your point of view on this film. I must say I havent seen anything quite like TZoI and I really wasnt sure what I felt when I left the theatre. The next few days it didnt really come back to visit me and I found that strange too. Ultimately like yourself I felt there was something wrong about the way it had been presented. I must watch SoS asap.
Great video not seen zone of interest or son of saul , im from a Jewish background so films like this do have real meaning to me , i might track down son of saul
Thanks for the honest assessment of a film I've avoided thus far, but have been consistently curious about. This presentation articulates probably the core issue I had been subliminally wrestling with...that being how glibly to portray these banal, so called "normal" people, who "just so happened to also be evil." I mean, for me, who cares how similar 99% of their lives were to everybody else's, if they spent even 1% of it actually doing evil acts? It's the totality of a life that makes it worth considering, not just the parts we can identify with. It makes sense to me why the modern Academy and media would want to honor a film that attempts to equivocate, if not normalize, these folks, but I think I'd rather check out "Son of Saul" instead since, if I'm going to be uncomfortable (which we should be) either way, I'd rather have on screen characters to sympathize with.
I also haven't read the novel. I don't think Glazer was trying to examine the banality of evil as much as the silent complicity of German society in allowing this to happen - and going along with the dehumanisation to the point that it became 'necessary'. The Hoss family become symbols of wider Germany in that sense, and whilst it's true that their real direct complicity makes them an awkward representation of the wider 'look the other way' mentality - perhaps Glazer is trying to suggest that in reality this wider silence is in fact more direct and aggressive in its impact, and an essential part of the enablement of what took place. This aggressive, amplified, silence is also what Glazer has drawn parallels to in our current world. From my perspective Nemes' criticism is performing the role of denying a voice to those that want to break the silence - and I find his arguments fairly cheap and dishonest, or at least lacking in any genuine attempt to engage.
Thanks for your comment, Jools. I think perhaps time and unfolding events in Gaza have been unkind to Nemes here. Neither he nor I could have anticipated how that would unfold (and it was the main reason I held back on this vid for so long. I was originally going to talk more about Glazer's speech and reaction to it, but each day, the news altered the context so much, it didn't seem worth it!)
Son of Saul amazing award winner as it still is, seems to have taken a lot of it's queues from Spielberg. Although Steven took a very realist view within his own Oscar winning narrative just like Glazer had, according to you at 12:57! A black comedy. Next .. Jerry Lewis presents The Day The Clown Cried! A black comedy about the concentration camps may have worked for you but not for your average "knower of truth". You may have been discombobulated by the massive historic journey of pain this monumental English film director, but so what! That Oscar for best Sound was so glib!
@@michaelbartlettfilm It's not as ingenious as Coppola via, The Conversation. It should be commented that the moral values complicit within owns experience should thus make a self-justifiable statement.
I didn't like it because is a forced allegory. And if it wasn't such a dark topic nobody would give a crap. I'd rewatch Sophies's Choice or Schindler's List or Downfall or The Pianist rather than this film.
was intrigued by the title so I clicked in not expecting to watch the whole thing but was captivated by the way you spoke about the film. Thank you for that.
And thank YOU for your comment! (weepywoopy - great name)
Thank you, Mike. I haven't seen "The Zone of Interest" or "Son of Saul" yet, but I really enjoyed your video. Such an interesting and thoughtful review, analysis, and comparison of the two films!
Thanks, Julie! Reassuring, cos I thought this might be a controversial one!
Your correction of the Arendt commonplace is necessary (Did she really fail to see the demon behind Eichmann's mask? Does Glazer ?). The contrast with Son of Saul is brilliant. It makes sense of your appraisal, without rejecting the importance of Zone.
I wonder if you think that Kubrick's project, based on the Wartime Lies novel, could have worked.
Many heartfelt thanks.
Thanks, Steve! I'm sure Kubrick would have made it work, but I'm kind of glad it didn't happen. For a start, we might not have got Eyes Wide Shut! More seriously, it would have just added to the movies on the same theme that were around at the time, that I don't feel were adding anything to the conversation and felt unnecessary at best, unpleasant at worst. (I think everyone's carefully forgotten Life Is Beautiful...)
Thanks, Michael, what you say makes a lot of sense and Kubrick didn't make the film, after all. But "Wartime Lies" does add much to the conversation about survival, I think.
Have you discussed "Eyes Wide Shut" or other films by Kubrick? I very much hope you have because your work is extraordinary.
@@stivschwartz thanks, Steve! I’ve done a top ten Kubrick films, but it was a very early vid and I’d quite like to rework it a bit. But it’s there if you want to check it out. I love Eyes Wide Shut and have discussed it in other vids . I think it gets better with age.
@@michaelbartlettfilm Thanks, Mike, that's great news. I'll watch them.. "Eyes Wide Shut" does have long legs, as you say It really makes me want to think about it critically
And speaking of mystery, I'm haunted by the German series Kafka on Chiaflicks
@@stivschwartz ooh, haven’t seen it. Will check it out.
I've not seen 'The Zone of Interest', but many seem to have forgotten that some of this same thematic territory was covered in the 1982 drama 'Sophie's Choice', where pivotal scenes are set in Auschwitz, including the commandant's residence, the occurrences there highlighting the disjunction between the quotidian mundanity of the captors' lives and the lethal horrors within the camp over which they preside. 'Sophie's Choice' isn't to my mind a great film, but it's a serious and probing work that forces the viewer to confront the evil that human beings have recurrently enacted. (I should note that 'Sophie's Choice' was also adapted from a novel, which I've not read.)
Like you, I am an admirer of 'Son of Saul', one of the indisputable greatest films of the twenty-first century so far. As you indicate, much of my respect for this masterpiece resides in its moral complexity, and its insistence on the viewer's engagement with the material (and incidentally, my own feeling for the story was that the boy was not Saul's child, but this deliberate ambiguity is part of the film's power).
Lastly, your comments on 'Son of Saul' bring to mind thoughts on Pier Paolo Pasolini's enduringly provocative final film 'Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma', from 1975, wherein the director's Sadean setting becomes an analogue to the death camps of German-occupied Europe, with the narrative illustrating how terror can generate complicity and acquiescence to limitless horror and depravity. I respect how this film implicates the viewer in the proceedings, denying both characters and audience of any claims of innocence and inertia, and demands that all confront the darkness harbored in every human heart.
Thanks, Barry. And I agree with your comments on Salo, still the most disturbing film I've ever seen.
I like the zone of interest cause it is subtle like the mother in law just wanting to leave cause of the overwhelming dread of being next to the camp. The river scene. I saw Sophies recently after zone and that final scene probably happened hundreds of time in a day at because they used to separate the children as soon as they get off of the train.
Your thoughts on this were worth the wait. Great video. I’m now reassessing my viewing experience of both ZoI and SoS. 👍 Thanks as always for your intelligent and honest takes.
Thanks, Steve, glad you liked. I did this vid after a stab of guilt following your comment on my garden vid!
I swear I could listen to you for hours man.
Thanks so much, mate. Needed some kind words today.
This has to be the best analysis I have seen of The Zone Of Interest, even though I am not as critical of it as you, that I feel because we never see the horror of the holocaust makes the film better. But your perspective makes me think different about it, and that is why I always enjoy your videoes. I think what makes your unpoupular opinions great, is that you are always very clear about why you feel the way you feel, and you have some interesting points of view. I hope you will continue to do that. As a I have wrote before- your channel is very underrated. I wish I had seen Son of Saul- I have it on DVD, but havent got into it yet.
Thanks, Nikolaj. Such a lovely comment, really appreciated. I thought I'd get some criticism for this one but seems OK...so far!
I have to say I disagree with your assessments of both films.
For a start, much of your use of language is ill-judged here. What does it really mean to say a film 'puts you in a glib position' or 'compromises the viewer'? This just seems like empty jargon to me. Also, I'm not sure whether you mean the word 'bourgeois' in either the Marxist or the traditional sense, but in neither case does it correctly describe the family in the Glazer film.
I think you're rather exaggerating the moral ambiguity of 'Son of Saul'. The sonderkommando were victims just as much as any of the other inmates - all of them were purged after a few months before being replaced by a fresh group of inmates. And in fact their victimhood was intensified, because they had to take perform unspeakable duties as a prelude to their deaths. They are by no means comparable to the kapos or the authorities in many of the German-run ghettos, who were really *were* morally implicated in the Holocaust, even though they were to a greater or lesser extent victims of the Nazis themselves.
You say repeatedly that 'The Zone of Interest' depicts its subjects 'unrealistically' or 'unbelievably' without really offering any supporting argument. I don't understand why you think this. It is in fact remarkably realistic and true to history - no work of historical fiction is ever entirely accurate, but it's certainly one of the most truthful historical films I've ever seen. It is based on extensive research into the lives of the Höss family, the bureaucracy of the SS, Höss's memoir, the testimony of witnesses, and so on.
By comparison, although 'Son of Saul' has various real events taking place in the background (a boy who supposedly survived being gassed for a brief time, the inmate revolt), the central figure and his story are entirely made up, and to my mind at least, seem a bit contrived.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I think my problem with the realism of Zone of Interest lies in the depiction of Hoss and his wife, and the interaction between them. They hardly ever discuss his work, the daily ins and outs of it, the thinking behind it. Her relationship to the situation is portrayed as "out of sight, out of mind" to an extent that I find unbelievable. There is one brief scene at the beginning where Hoss discusses the architecture of the death chambers with some designers. But that's it. I absolutely agree that the materialistic reality of the time, the detail, is superbly evoked. And I forgot to mention in my video the incredible sound design, one of the chief features of the film. But if the conceit is to work, the characters on screen must be believable, not just as a bourgeois family of that era, but as people involved - on their doorstep - in such an undertaking. In Glazer's film, they are portrayed as a common-or-garden clerk and his wife. There is barely any discussion of his "work" bar his transfer to another camp. And I find that "glib" - it's too facile a depiction of the people involved, and puts the audience in a position of judgment which is too straightforward and not challenging enough. How close are we ourselves to the Hosses, for example? I suppose, ultimately, one's perception of the realism of a film is subjective. I found ZOI fascinating, but it didn't quite work for me.
Excellent video and well done on finally putting it out. I was very interested to hear your point of view on this film. I must say I havent seen anything quite like TZoI and I really wasnt sure what I felt when I left the theatre. The next few days it didnt really come back to visit me and I found that strange too. Ultimately like yourself I felt there was something wrong about the way it had been presented. I must watch SoS asap.
Thanks, Matt. Glad you enjoyed the vid. Would love to know what you make of SoS!
Back in full force!
A very interesting article.
16:26 16:26
Thanks, Steve! (I'm not sure if this 16.26 business is the ultimate compliment or the ultimate insult, ha, ha!)
@@michaelbartlettfilm not sure about the 16:26 either ha
Very thoughtful take. Subscribed.
Thank you!
Great video not seen zone of interest or son of saul , im from a Jewish background so films like this do have real meaning to me , i might track down son of saul
Thanks, Stu. Son of Saul is a tough watch, but well worth it.
@@michaelbartlettfilmI bought the Blu-ray 💿👈🏻👍🏻
Thanks for the honest assessment of a film I've avoided thus far, but have been consistently curious about. This presentation articulates probably the core issue I had been subliminally wrestling with...that being how glibly to portray these banal, so called "normal" people, who "just so happened to also be evil." I mean, for me, who cares how similar 99% of their lives were to everybody else's, if they spent even 1% of it actually doing evil acts? It's the totality of a life that makes it worth considering, not just the parts we can identify with. It makes sense to me why the modern Academy and media would want to honor a film that attempts to equivocate, if not normalize, these folks, but I think I'd rather check out "Son of Saul" instead since, if I'm going to be uncomfortable (which we should be) either way, I'd rather have on screen characters to sympathize with.
Thanks, Frank. I think it's still worth watching both movies (though not back to back - imagine what an evening that would be!)
@@michaelbartlettfilm Yes, I'd probably have to squeeze "Monty Python and the Meaning of Life" in between
One of the best videos, I have seen thus far.... I came for the Fighting Fantasy retrospectives, and stayed for the film reviews lol
Thanks so much! Glad you're enjoying the channel!
I also haven't read the novel.
I don't think Glazer was trying to examine the banality of evil as much as the silent complicity of German society in allowing this to happen - and going along with the dehumanisation to the point that it became 'necessary'.
The Hoss family become symbols of wider Germany in that sense, and whilst it's true that their real direct complicity makes them an awkward representation of the wider 'look the other way' mentality - perhaps Glazer is trying to suggest that in reality this wider silence is in fact more direct and aggressive in its impact, and an essential part of the enablement of what took place.
This aggressive, amplified, silence is also what Glazer has drawn parallels to in our current world. From my perspective Nemes' criticism is performing the role of denying a voice to those that want to break the silence - and I find his arguments fairly cheap and dishonest, or at least lacking in any genuine attempt to engage.
Thanks for your comment, Jools. I think perhaps time and unfolding events in Gaza have been unkind to Nemes here. Neither he nor I could have anticipated how that would unfold (and it was the main reason I held back on this vid for so long. I was originally going to talk more about Glazer's speech and reaction to it, but each day, the news altered the context so much, it didn't seem worth it!)
Do you have a letterboxd?
I’m afraid not. Too modern for me!
Son of Saul amazing award winner as it still is, seems to have taken a lot of it's queues from Spielberg. Although Steven took a very realist view within his own Oscar winning narrative just like Glazer had, according to you at 12:57!
A black comedy. Next .. Jerry Lewis presents The Day The Clown Cried!
A black comedy about the concentration camps may have worked for you but not for your average "knower of truth".
You may have been discombobulated by the massive historic journey of pain this monumental English film director, but so what!
That Oscar for best Sound was so glib!
I'll grant I should have mentioned the sound design. It's astonishing throughout.
@@michaelbartlettfilm It's not as ingenious as Coppola via, The Conversation.
It should be commented that the moral values complicit within owns experience should thus make a self-justifiable statement.
I didn't like it because is a forced allegory. And if it wasn't such a dark topic nobody would give a crap. I'd rewatch Sophies's Choice or Schindler's List or Downfall or The Pianist rather than this film.
In retrospect, it strikes me as more of an avant-garde, even gallery film. I'm surprised it reached such a large audience.
@@michaelbartlettfilmThe Glazer effect.
Its very easy to like